Kim's mom gave her two tickets to the Lord of the Rings musical in Toronto so we went to that this weekend and it was not too bad. Probably about as good as a musical version of the Lord of the Rings could be. But I don't see it doing a multiple year run like other shows have done at the Princess of Whales (Phantom of the Opera -- 8 years or something). We also wandered around the Eaton's Centre a bit and got supper at the Pickle Barrel which is always good.

On Sunday Kim and I went to see X-Men 3 in Waterloo, and it was alright. Fun action stuff with more mutants that remind you of the original cartoon or comics (if you happened to have partaken in those as a child). We also went for supper at the Mongolian Grill with Mike and Matt for Mike's birthday. We even got the staff to give Mike a free dessert and sing to him. Afterwards Mike and I hung out at the tea shop next door with a couple of his friends until after midnight. Good times!

This term has been pretty relaxing so far. I work on Real Time and that's about it. The rest of the time I just hang out, do stuff with Kim or other friends, or just play Legend of Zelda for SNES. We've been working our way through the first six seasons of the Simpsons on DVD and we're probably going to start watching Arrested Development soon as well.

The new version of Ubuntu is coming out this week. I'm planning on installing it right away because my Debian installation has become a bit broken in the last few weeks. I really shouldn't have done that last "dist-upgrade" but you never know that before it's too late.

Our Waterloo apartment is nice (as I mentioned before) and I appreciate the fact that the air conditioning allows me to sit at my desk and type without sweating (last summer term was HOT). But, we're in the basement and as far as we can tell the air conditioning is ALWAYS on. We all wear sweaters, jeans and socks when we're home and it's over 30 degrees Celsius outside! It's just not right when I have to remove extra clothing to go outside.

I've been working a lot on Real Time lately, and we've managed to finish the first kernel assignment almost a week early. Hopefully we can finish the second kernel assignment this week before the first one is even due! Just like Graphics!

The only other exciting thing that has happened lately was that the cleaning lady for our apartment came today! First time! She was really nice and cleaned almost everything. She vacuumed, mopped, cleaned counters and the bathroom. So awesome! This is such a non-student place!

Oh yeah, one other thing. I signed an offer from Autodesk (at the old Alias office in Toronto) to be a full-time software developer on the Maya team starting in September. Yay jobs! I need to find an apartment in Toronto now, preferably downtown. My biggest requirement is ensuite laundry, but I'd also like to have all the nice fancy things that the new expensive condos have.

It's been a while since my last update, and a lot has happened. But this will probably be a fairly abridged version as I'm kinda tired/busy. Real Time is going to be a lot of work.

The day after my last exam of the term I flew back to California to interview for two more positions with Apple. It went pretty well and Mike managed to come down to visit for an evening which rocked as usual (mmm....Outback Steakhouse). I also got to stay in California for a reasonable amount of time (3 nights), so things were much less rushed than last time and I think it made the interviews go a little smoother (lots of time to relax and get settled).

I got back on a Wednesday to meet Mike (who arrived the day before) at the Westcourt apartment for pizza and a bit of chillin'. Other than Pizza Hut taking two hours to deliver our food (yay for future credit!), it was a pretty relaxing evening. The next day we ran down to Kitchener to pick up a rental van to move to our new place down the street. I'm now on McDougall, which isn't much further from the University than Westcourt. The place is really sweet though, brand new stuff everywhere and gigantic. Plus, air conditioning for the summer.

Here are some pictures of my room, note that I have opted to use the double bed someone left here and that it means I finally get to live the true student experience by sleeping on a matress on the floor.

Mike in front of my closet

Mike shooting a basket in front of my desk/dresser

Mike in front of my bed

Matt's room:

Matt in his room

Mike's room:

Mike's room at McDougall

The common areas:

The hallway at McDougall

The kitchen and living room at McDougall

The kitchen and living room at McDougall

Bathroom at McDougall

Laundry Room

After getting all moved in we relaxed, watched a bunch of Simpsons on my new DVD/DivX player, and just generally hung out. Kim helped move and she stayed for the weekend, and Adrienne also came to visit on Saturday and Sunday.

I'm only taking one class this term, and it is Real Time Programming, which many people will tell you is more than enough all on it's own. I think I can already say that I agree. We've only had a week of classes and I'm already worried about being able to finish the work. Tonight (a Sunday), after getting back from my trip home, I went straight to the lab and worked for more than four hours on my current assignment. Despite the work, it looks like it will be pretty fun, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

This weekend was also really fun. Friday was Kim's birthday, so I left Waterloo early to visit her on Thursday night and all day Friday. We shopped a bit and did the dinner thing and just had a good time. My mom's birthday is also in May (the 30th), and my brother and I decided to take her to see the musical "Hair" this year in Toronto. Saturday was a good day for it, so that's what we did. We hit up the Hot House for supper afterwards and it was about the same as usual. The show was great, and I think my mom really enjoyed the day (which is all that really matters). Sunday I went to lunch with Kim's family (as usual), but this time we had cake and presents for Kim and her dad (his birthday is the day after Kim's). The whole weekend was a nice, last break before Real Time takes me away.